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Poll: Is The Price For 360 Hard Drives Fair?

March 17, 2009 in Blog comments 34

Ryan Rigney of SlapStic.com presents some eye-opening statistics on the price of Xbox 360 hard drives versus the price of an average, everyday USB hard drive. Turns out, Microsoft is totally ripping off its consumers.

If you're an Amazon shopper like myself, you will find that you can get a 120 GB 360 hard drive for about $150 bucks, (source) OR you can get a regular USB hard drive for $115 dead presidents (source). So in other words, when you pay for a decently-sized 360 hard drive, you're paying 1.3 times the price for 1/8 of the hard drive space.
RKRigney via slapstic.com »
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Most recently commented on by on Mar 19, 2009

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  • 4
    Hunskelper Mar 18, 09
    It depends really.

    If you compare them to other Hard Drives on the market, then yeah, total rip-off.

    If you compare them to console memory cards from present and past generations then they are a steal.
    • 0
      Livewire_19 Mar 18, 09
      Your right, Microsoft charging $50 for a 512MB memory unit is the real rip off.
      • 7
        Armed Rebel Mar 18, 09
        No no no, the REAL ripoff is SONY charging $25 for their 8MB memory cards.

        http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=3980
        • 3
          Slumpy monkey Mar 18, 09
          "Packing 8MB of memory, the PlayStation 2 memory card can hold more than you ever imagined."

          Lmao.
        • 0
          HisServant77 Mar 18, 09
          Lol, well hey, back when the PS2 was new, having an 8mb memory card was WAY more than enough for the average gamer.
        • 2
          Fatal Error Mar 18, 09
          Isn't that Gamestop actually charging that much?
        • 2
          Armed Rebel Mar 18, 09
          You think gamestop conjures them from thin air? Who do you think they get them from?

          Maybe it's only gamestop that's charging the $50 for the 360 memory card?
        • 1
          Fatal Error Mar 19, 09
          Considering you can find packs of two 8MB memory cards elsewhere (Sony certified) for the same price suggests that yes, Gamestop's the issue.

          Not only that, but it's highly unlikely they've even received a shipment of Sony 8MB memory cards in the past year or more so it's not like they're making them and selling them for that much right now. Hell, look at the description. Also consider that what matters is how many games saves they could store, because that was their only use. Hard Drives are used for so much more than that.

          Oh, and transferable memory costs way more.
  • 1
    Silent Storm Mar 18, 09
    It's too bad we can't use normal hard drives on the 360. You can find a terabyte external hard drive for $100-150 now...
  • 0
    SUPREM_KITE Mar 18, 09
    There a complete rip-off for a hdd, especially in today's world of dime per gig storage in 1TB and 2TB drives.
  • 0
    Dine_Agoti Mar 18, 09
    The PS3 is capable of using any standard 5400RPM SATA hard drive, therefore I was able to get a 320gig at $70 for mine. Compare that to my 360's 120gig hard drive that cost me $150 and the conclusion is pretty obvious.

    The 360 might be winning this generation's console war, but it's still made by the whores at Microsoft... never forget that.
    • 1
      SUPREM_KITE Mar 18, 09
      actually you can use any rpm drive in the ps3.
      • 1
        HisServant77 Mar 18, 09
        Exactly, the only necessity is that it must be a 2.5" form factor . . . regular laptop HDD and not a desktop sized HDD.

        That is, if you want to go internal. You can of course use an external of any size.

        Oh, and it must be formatted FAT32.
        • 0
          Dine_Agoti Mar 18, 09
          Thanks for the clarification. Didn't know that. But either way, it's a bloody scam.
        • 0
          HisServant77 Mar 18, 09
          No problem at all. I think a lot of people don't know all of that, so, happy to help if I can
  • 3
    HisServant77 Mar 18, 09
    To me, it is definitely a rip off. I only hope that the next MS console will use generic HDDs so that you can buy any 'ol inexpensive great HDD.
  • 0
    Kazooieman Mar 18, 09
    It's so annoying. I have to pay $200 fr a 120 GB one. (The only one in Australia)
    • 1
      BANDITO ATTACK Mar 18, 09
      what is that, like 6$ usd? half a euro?

      australia is so expensive man. you guys gotta be pretty dedicated to your games to pay that much for them. D:
  • 0
    Big A2 Mar 18, 09
    It just sounds expensive. The current exchange rate is US$0.6599 for every AU$1.

    A US$50 dollar game costs AU$80 if you buy it at the right place here, and US$50 exchanges at AU$75.77.

    So if you think about it, it's not that bad.

    I think the reason we have to pay a little more is because how obsolete Australian game sales are compared to other countries.
  • 0
    brett108 Mar 18, 09
    @Hunskelper- You cannot compare price point for hardware across generations. Of course it is cheaper for hard disk space at this point. When the PS2 was released, large HDDs in computers were 80 GB in size. Hardware always accelerates downward in price as manufacturing improves. I think the mark of a good company should be to learn from previous mistakes. Sony's HDD is generic, and can use any properly formatted hard disk drive. Microsoft stayed old school Scrooge, using a proprietary HDD that they can charge you more for. MS has always tried to monopolize their industries, and the FTC has caught them before(the IE bundle fiasco).It is bad for consumers and good for shareholders. People need to stop defending MS, they could be the worst country for customers anywhere.
    • 1
      Hunskelper Mar 18, 09
      I'm not comparing current memory prices to past prices. What I'm saying is that console memory cards have always been ridiculously overpriced.
  • 1
    carouselambra Mar 18, 09
    man I dont even use up 120GB on my pc, how in the name of Jesus can you need more than 120GB for your x-box 360?
    • 3
      iLLmatic Mar 18, 09
      Just because you don't have anything on your PC, doesn't mean other people don't.
      • 1
        carouselambra Mar 18, 09
        I have about 50 folders of lesbian porn on my pc, and I still cap out at only 30 GB. I can scrape by with only 30 folders of it for my x box, so more than 20GB is really not needed. A lot of it is unnessecary riff-raff anyway, if you actually clean up what you need and dont need you'll free yourself up a lot of memory, its about neccesity.
        • 0
          HisServant77 Mar 18, 09
          O . . . K. . . I really didn't want to know the contents of those folders, thank you. "I have about 50 folders filled with pictures" would have sufficed.

          Anyway.
          On my PS3 I have about 100gb filled up.

          On my 360 I've had to constantly delete things I wanted to keep, so that I can continue to use my 20gb.

          On my computer I have two HDDs totalling 750gb and one HDD is already filled and the other is more than halfway filled.

          On my one laptop I have a relatively small HDD of 40gb and it's maxed.

          On my other laptop (Tablet PC) I have a 80gb and I have it maxed and need to upgrade it with a spare 320gb I have.

          So . . . Try to convince me that it's hard to fill up a large HDD. (And this does not include the portable HDDs I have, and thumb drives and Mem Sticks.) And yes I do delete things once I don't need them anymore. If I didn't, I'd HAVE to have several TB external drives lying around.
    • 0
      Blaze Mar 18, 09
      I know what you mean but there's a lot of stuff you can put on the harddrive.
      • 0
        carouselambra Mar 18, 09
        I suppose so, but 120GB worth? thats one hundred and twenty gigabytes 120. in kilobytes, thats precisely, many many kilobytes, dont you know.
  • 0
    iLLmatic Mar 18, 09
    Of course it's a ripoff. This isn't even up for debate, never was. You're paying over a dollar per gig, just so they can rape at will. That network adapter is even more rape. 100 bucks for a dongle? I don't even understand how people allow them to get away with that.
    • 2
      Hunskelper Mar 18, 09
      Luckily the console itself is a complete steal.
      • 0
        HisServant77 Mar 18, 09
        HAHA . . . That's a good one

        Lol

        Haha, Ah, man, Whew, Deep breath . . . Hahaha! Okay, cut it out, breathe! I need to go now. . . . Lol
  • 2
    Storm Mar 18, 09
    My router is a floor above the 360, so I needed that wireless adapter...this on the other hand, I can pass. For the past three years that I've owned a 360, I've managed on the 20GB provided.
  • 1
    Seproth Mar 18, 09
    Dude, someone pointed this out after the elite came out and you can upgrade to the 120.
  • 1
    kspiess Mar 19, 09
    Oh big rip off for sure. It would not that be difficult for MS to make Xboxes to work with regular external HD's.
  • 0
    carouselambra Mar 19, 09
    quote
    O . . . K. . . I really didn't want to know the contents of those folders, thank you. "I have about 50 folders filled with pictures" would have sufficed.
    that wasnt for your benefit that was just in case there happens to be anyone who shares a common interest and wants to trade stock.

    Granted if you're using your laptop or pc for a specialised purpose, for example music or art or something along those lines, the gigabytes can stack up fast. But the majority of people dont, and the people who do, have a machine specialised for it that's not loaded with useless unnessecary crap or youtube videos. even if its just a 10 year old desktop in the "office" that still counts as a specialised machine, but my point is, it's like all the old boxes under the bed or in the garage. Instead of buying new boxes, if you sift through them all and get rid of what you dont need and rearrange what you do need, you'll see there's a lot of space to take advantage of. Same goes for memory on computers or gaming systems; if you dont want to splash out a large portion of your pay check, or pocket money, or government benefits or wherever your income is coming from, then all you need to do, is prioritise. And tidy things up. But who can be bothered to do that, people would rather pay for the privelige of not having to bother, which is quite ridiculous. When you get to the point of filling upp 120GB on the xbox, really thats when you need to stop and just empty everything on there, delete it all, get rid of it all and start from zero, because essentially whats happening when you're managing to fill up a thousand-million bytes of information, is you're getting drawn in and controlled by something, which you are holding the controller to. IF you have the money for that and you're happy with that then go for it, but my point of points is, all things considered, there is very very few people who actually do REALLY NEED, more than life itself, a 120GB harddrive for their xbox. And the people who do manage to need it,generally speaking, are not gonna be bothered about the price.

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